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Gianluca Fiorelli returns for the second part of his interview to discuss how humanistic studies influences his international SEO work. From the evolution of language to literary theory, Gianluca’s academic background makes him a powerhouse in digital marketing.

The meaning of words and interpretation of content may one day be monopolised by google as it continues to invests more resources into arranging the sum total of digitised human experience. Gianluca explains the creative process through the lens of classical European philosophers, to answer the the hows and the whys surrounding the things that influence human decision making.

Leap off of the deep end with our heroes and discover the roots of the content wars and the implications search has on the political and social landscape of the entire globe.

To be concluded...

Gianluca Fiorelli Quotes

"Just ask Google, just ask Wikipedia in order to receive an answer. Maybe yes. Maybe we can have this kind of risk. Who is controlling the game? Who is judging the judge?" (12:36)

"I think I'm really lucky to have known what to be fully analogical means because let's say if all the things we are using are going to disappear for some reason, I'll still know how to think. I think that my son or either my cousins, where they are totally digital, they would go into panic." (35:04)

On Episode 13 of Wojcast he takes the time to burst open a few bubbles with our heroes Woj and Bobby to help broaden their understanding of how search and marketing operate internationally.

Over a burger and fries with the blogger of choice at Moz, the team also get a lesson in robotic ethics as told by science fiction and find out why the future of AI will be determined by the porn industry.

Gianluca Fiorelli Quotes

"You could have some sort of 'Terminator' future because robots can decide for the goodness of humanity to rule humanity." (13:00)

"Sometime in the future we're going to have some sort of a mix between the 'Battlestar Galactica' cylons and the 'Blade Runner' cyborgs. Surely we'll see everything first in porn because porn is real avant-garde for everything in technology." (14:50)

Key Takeaways

Growing up SEO in Moz (3:15)

The development of search in Italy (6:43)

Robots from science fiction to science fact (10:22)

Choosing brand identities (16:32)

Gianluca's conference The Inbounder - which also tours to London, Madrid, New York and Milan (37:30)

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We love Jeff Goldblum, but not as much as Geraldine DeRuiter (syntactical ambiguity totally intended).

On episode 12 Woj and Bobby take a trip with the jet setting Everywhererist to discover the roots of her liberating travel ethos, where failing at a vacation is impossible and getting lost is all part of the master plan.

After writing her first book, All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft, Geraldine is bursting with golden nuggets of wisdom delivered with her timely sense of humour and endlessly inviting nerdery.

After surviving career setbacks, a brain tumor and a non-existent sense of direction she proves that when life gets tricky, Geraldine finds a way.

Geraldine DeRuiter Quotes

"There's Rick Steves and Anthony Bourdain and Samantha Brown and all of these, you know, incredibly charming, successful people who tell you how you should be traveling. And I think all of that is just garbage because all that does is it creates a system in which you can fail at a vacation and that's terrible, right?" (2:31)

"You are not determining every factor of it. I think that's true if you're doing a startup. I think that's true if you're on a trip. I think that's true if you are writing a book. At some point, it kinda takes a life of its own and it's going to lead you, so I think you need to be okay with being kind of a passive sort of journeyman or woman on that trip. You know, you need to be able to sit back and let it guide you…" (7:40)

Our heroes Woj and Bobby learn about how the company will confront the future of SEO and how Rand addresses pressure and looks after his mental health in the process.

Rand Fishkin Quotes

"...Any time you see opacity or secretiveness, there’s almost always something bad behind it… And on the flip side, when you are transparent, the harsh criticisms that you expect turn into words of kindness and praise." (25:45)

"Many of these problems would be solved through transparency and wouldn’t even exist if you had transparency." (28:40)

"In the order of operations of Moz’s values, empathy is the only thing that sits above transparency." (30:00)

Key Takeaways

Breaking the depression loop (20:48)

The value and challenges of living transparently (24:34)

Empathy in business (30:00)

Rand is also hard at work on his tell-all new book Lost and Founder, which will be available through Penguin.

Sweet! But before you go all Trump and start waving your CEO flag it’s time to put some serious thought into the ideas that will form the foundation of your company.

You may know what you do well but do you honestly know why you do it? Values are everything and few founders represent what they believe as openly as Moz’s Rand Fishkin.

On episode 10 of WojCast, he reveals the roots of his religious devotion to transparency and how it helped build Moz into the industry leader it is today.

Plus Woj learns why you should never forget your gameboy... ever.

Rand Fishkin Quotes

"If you want the suit and the tie and the jacket and the formal language and no one who ever says the ‘F’ word, then we’re not the company for you. That’s not us." (11:17)

"What you want to say is 'How do I help you make twice as much from your search traffic next year as you made this year? That’s what I’m going to help you do.' And ranking is part of that." (18:00)

"Microsoft received a lot of criticism when they were growing up here in the 90s, and some of it was deserved. They were a pretty aggressive company when they grew, but they brought about the era of web and technology, and everything that we have today." (19:34)

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A Future-Proof Broken Record - Interview with Ian Lurie

What do you do to get your copy right? Mastering the art of communication is more important than ever if you hope to capture and hold onto a modern audience that is literally drowning in content.

There’s nothing wrong with being spoiled with choices, as long as the options are of the highest standard and our guest, Portent’s Ian Lurie, has the insights to help you write premium content.

Join our heroes on Episode 9 of WojCast as they attempt to wax poetic with one of the kings of content. Ian’s wealth of experience has made him the self described, “broken-record” of basic rules and principles of marketing that if followed correctly will turn into future-proof gains over time.

Ian Lurie Quotes

"What’s consistently worked is what’s always worked in marketing and as you know, I’m a broken record on this. You need a clear message, well communicated and well executed. You know, it used to be that well-executed meant fantastic TV, print, radio campaigns, but now well executed means visible in search, usable, and very fast." (3:29)

"If we are professional communicators, we are the ones who can most impact the level of discourse everywhere and by communicating messages more effectively, and I don’t care if you’re communicating it about briefs, or politics or whatever, you know, pretzels. The better you communicate the more you impact the overall way people communicate with each other." (9:25)

"Really it’s not the mistake that screws you, it’s what you do after the mistake that can get you in trouble." (11:33)

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Linking with the Sage - Interview with Jason Acidre

Any gaming fans in the house? Ever considered testing your superior hand eye coordination skills in the business world? Put down the controllers and join our masterclass in link building on episode 8 of WojCast with Xight Interactive's Jason Acidre. He’s a former pro-Counter Strike player turned digital marketing superstar.

In our interview he talks about the challenges of transitioning from pro-gaming to digital marketing and running his internationally acclaimed business from the Philippines.

In the competitive world of outreach, Jason shares some of the philosophical principles that allow his approach to remain so effective and keep also him feeling great in the process.

No cheat codes necessary this round, Wojcasters. Join our heroes Woj and Bobby Bot for a link session with the sage.

(No Counter Strike competitors were injured in the making of this episode)

Jason Acidre Quotes

"I guess that’s the main thing about outreach is you really have to be more focused on the human side of the practice itself other than the science." (5:00)

"The ones who can really get tons of links are the ones who break something. Like, discovered something and are the first to publish it. They become the instant resource for that particular thing." (18:45)

Key Takeaways

The anatomy of a successful agency (11:40)

Jason's content-based link building battle plan (15:52)

The future of marketing (23:14)

What Jason's studies have to teach us about the role of empathy (27:28)

Bottom's up: we're shouting a round of link juice - and it's a double! WojCast is happy to present Episode 7 featuring the lords of links, Jon Cooper and Paddy Moogan. Add to your digital arsenal with a double dose link lesson from two of the best in the business.

Our heroes Woj and Bobby Bot find out how the young Jon Cooper of Point Blank SEO turned a Uni passion project into a full time hustle, eventually developing a scaled link building campaign he would share with the world.

Jet-setter and Aira co-founder Paddy Moogan drops in as well to talk about his New Zealand sabbatical, writing the book on links and transforming into a living breathing meme.

Will the art of links assist Bobby Bot on his empathy quest? Take a break from familial bliss and find out on the latest edition of WojCast.

Quotes

"If Matt Cutts is saying ‘they’ve got many, many years left in them’, as much as he hates links himself, and link-spam, which he is actively fighting, that means something. It means it’s still the basis of their algorithm." (18:45)

"I think ultimately you’ve got to think about the stuff that Google will never want to penalize and ultimately that comes back to having a website that deserves to get links." (35:30)

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The Brave New World of SERPs - Interview with Dr. Pete

Are you struggling to understand search engine results pages? Check in with the good Doctor of Moz, Peter Meyers who joins the crew on episode 6 of WojCast to take the lid off the mystery of international search by sharing the results of some of his game-changing research.

Join our heroes Woj and Bobby Bot as they dig deeper with the search scientist to understand what the future will look like as Google goes beyond ten blue links.

80% of search engine results pages change every day, so now’s the time to assess how frequently we produce content, how creative our strategies are in digital and how we are tracking in the new era of visibility.

In typical Dr. Pete fashion, his interview is filled with insights, Twitter-worthy quotables and plenty of actionable takeaways for fellow mad data scientists.

The Doctor is in!

Dr. Pete Quotes

Listen to Dr. Pete deliver a crash course in international SERP’s, content creation tips and the art of infographics:

"The nicest thing I hear about MozCast is when people just basically say, ‘Thank you for letting me know I’m not crazy’ and that’s really gratifying." (6:50)

"I don’t think [Google] know. They know that’s what we need. We need small screens, we need voice. How do you monetize a voice answer if there’s no SERP? They don’t know and they have to figure that out." (14:31)

"You can’t do everything for Google and complain about Google, and then build a site that doesn’t sell a product and doesn’t make money. That’s self-defeating." (16:33)

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From 28K to Reinventing Search - Interview with Gary Ilyes

Does pondering the inner workings of Google keep you awake at night? In the fifth episode of WojCast, our heroes Bobby and Woj talk to Google’s own webmaster trends analyst Gary Illyes. When he isn’t working side by side with the search lords arranging the collective knowledge of humanity into a infinite potentially self-aware interactive digital library, you can find Gary helping (or trolling) users on Twitter, dishing out Google’s guidelines and best practices so that all of humanity’s great ideas can be found online.

In this interview we travel back to Gary’s first memory of the internet and trek all the way back to the future-present where he finds himself speaking regularly on behalf of one of the planet's most powerful companies.

Join Woj and Bobby as they wrestle with the greater ramifications of AI in search and try and figure out how Google ticks while simultaneously using advanced machine learning to score Bobby Bot a blind date with destiny. Google it!

Gary Illyes Quotes

Listen to Gary Illyes breakdown some of the Google basics (or secrets) and why organising humanity’s collective information is such a big deal:

"Our goal was always to provide the most relevant results to our users and that hasn't changed over the years." (3:40)

"In general, I hope that publishers will try hard to create high ­quality sites instead of trying to sell Viagra in a Canadian casino without a prescription." (4:00)

"So we continuously try to throttle the bots that are scraping our results, and we sometimes even mess with the search results just to screw them." (13:34)

"If we disclose stuff about the core ranking algorithm, then we would be in deep crap." (17:15)

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About WojCast

I’m Woj Kwasi, founder of Kwasi Studios. Join me in conversation with some of the world’s digital elite and leading entrepreneurs to undercover the secrets to their business and online success, including: How to overcome adversity to build a thriving business, mastering authenticity and discovering the power of digital empathy.